Heartbreak Illustrates A Common Human Struggle

May 19, 2006|By Kathleen DeGuzman McFatter Technical High

Belgian filmmaking brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne make movies that deal with profound, complex ideas: revenge and forgiveness (The Son) and obligation and allegiance (La Promesse). Their latest wrenching story is L'Enfant, which won the top prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival (this year's festival is being held right now).

L'Enfant (The Child) follows Bruno, a reckless young man who works as a petty thief to survive from day to day. His girlfriend Sonia just had their baby. Despite the burgeoning dedication Bruno devotes to his new situation, it all goes selfishly awry when he uses his son for money. Shunned by Sonia, Bruno tries to make amends. Along the way we realize that the namesake of the movie is not the baby, but Bruno himself.

As with the Dardenne brothers' other movies, L'Enfant uses a simple, heartbreaking situation to illustrate common human struggles. Completely bereft of music and shot in an extremely rough, handheld manner, L'Enfant almost doesn't feel like a movie; it is like the Dardennes are applying as little style and perspective as possible in order to leave judgment completely in the hands of the viewer. The lack of music (which usually serves to manipulate emotions) also allows the smallest details to have a raw, almost uncomfortable effect, like the purely innocent wailing of a child in cold water and the buzzsaw-like motor of a scooter during a chase that seems like a countdown to being caught.

But as minimalistic as it may sound, L'Enfant is actually expertly constructed. Several scenes in the beginning of the movie show Bruno and Sonia merrily fooling around as people their age should do, but the ironic reality of it is that because of their child, they really should be behaving more maturely. The deconstruction of this sense of carelessness, which culminates movingly in the final scene, is the thematic fulcrum of the story.

The arduous and agonizing ascension to maturation is the central struggle of L'Enfant. The movie can be unsettling because of its honesty, but like Bruno, learning to sympathize is something to be learned from experience. As bleak as their films are, the Dardenne brothers show that the beauty of humanity can only be discovered after wrestling through its ugliness.